Author Archives: Sue

Honours For Horrors

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The recent escalation of rocket attacks from Gaza is of little interest to the BBC. Scanty reporting treats Israelis impersonally, while Palestinian individuals are likely to be given names and ages.
Reporters know that subtly empathetic wording will have one effect, just as distancing, dehumanising phrasing will have another. Why should the BBC use these tactics at all, let alone apply them to one side and not the other?
Because they think we are stupid? Luckily for them, many of us are.
For example the Jerusalem Post gave a brief account of an attack. Nothing melodramatic, just giving a few names; painting a picture, as you would if you were concerned.
Here’s a report which calls a terrorist a terrorist. It’s pro Israel, but it doesn’t shy away from quoting speech from the Al-Qassam Brigades. More accurate because it’s not crippled by political correctness.

We know which side the BBC is on. Not only do they apply journalistic tactics such as distancing or empathy to substantive incidents like rocket attacks which they are obliged to report, but if they can get away with it they omit huge swathes of subtle material altogether, skewing the picture heavily against Israel.
When the BBC reported the Fogel family murders they used the term “a Jewish settler family” under the headline “Palestinian kills five Israelis in West Bank.” No details, only inverted commas, inserted first in one place, then altered, making an already awkwardly-phrased sentence look more absurd in their efforts to dehumanise an horrific act.

While the BBC is obsessed with blaming only Israel’s construction work in ‘settlements-illgal-under-international-law’ for obstructing the peace process, an erroneous theory repeated so often that it is embedded in the collective Brains of Britain, they are silent on the real, fundamental, immovable obstacles to peace. The most obvious goes unnoticed. Hamas doesn’t want peace at all, and Fatah wants it as an interim measure only, for neither can ever renounce violence or recognise Israel. Why not? Because they have indoctrinated the people so thoroughly that they’d never get away with it. Not only their people. The Guardian and its cronies espouse such an enthusiastic pro Palestinian militancy that when they thought PaliLeaks revealed that concessions were being discussed, they were mortified by what they saw as a betrayal by craven Palestinian negotiators.

The glorification of terrorism is newsworthy because it is a massive obstacle to peace, second only to the antisemitism inherent in the Koran that makes the Arab World’s acceptance of Israel so inconceivable. If there’s ever to be peace, glorification of martyrdom and terrorists must stop and education must start.
If the BBC paid half as much attention to these crippling practices as they do to empathising with the Palestinians, even people who haven’t heard of Barry Rubin would have a chance to see reason.

The BBC influences people who make the decisions that affect us all. Even if individual MPs look beyond the BBC for information, education and entertainment, public opinion exerts pressure on our leaders just as the man in the mosque exerts pressure over his political and religious masters. Just as we beg the Muslim media to re-educate their public, we equally beseech our BBC to do likewise unto ours.

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Unity at Last, Rejoice!

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Compare these reports. The BBC website is upbeat about the Palestinians’ latest measures to heal the feud between Hamas and Fatah. Mahmoud Abbas is ready to go to Gaza, and Hamas has welcomed the move. Hoorah!

The second paragraph reads:

“Both parties seem to be responding to the recent demonstrations that were inspired by the uprisings elsewhere in the Middle East, reports the BBC’s Jon Donnison from Ramallah.”

Then why is it under the jarring sub heading “AIRSTRIKE” ? Oh. The article suddenly veers off topic, skidding onto a path well-worn by the BBC.

“Meanwhile, doctors in Gaza said at least two Palestinians were killed in an Israeli airstrike in the central Gaza Strip. The Israeli army confirmed the attack, saying it was responding to rockets fired from Gaza.”

The BBC is barely interested in silly old rockets fired from Gaza, it wouldn’t have mentioned them at all had two Palestinians not been killed.

“Israel says militants have sent dozens of rockets into Israeli territory since the start of the year.”

‘Doctors in Gaza’ said the interesting thing; disembodied ‘Israel’ says the barely interesting, dodgy-looking thing.

“Before Wednesday’s incident, UN figures showed at least eight Palestinians had been killed by Israeli military action in Gaza in 2011.”
No reason given.

Another report is discussed here.

“the Palestinian news agency Ma’an reported that Gaza demonstrators in favour of reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah were violently dispersed by the Islamist group:
‘They beat people with batons and set fire to tents that were set up by the demonstrators, according to activists in Gaza City.’

So, not all sweetness and light inspired by the glorious Arab uprising then, BBC?
And what’s all this?

“on a day ostensibly devoted to Palestinian unity, police brutally attacked photographers and cameramen, beating the, breaking equipment and confiscating photos and video footage. This is the latest in a string of chilling attacks on reporters in Gaza.”

But the West sits silent.

Well, not completely silent. They did mention the airstrike.
I do hope Jon Donnison gets well soon. I’m assuming he was knocked unconscious in the fracas. That must be it.

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Letter to the Arab World

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Is The Arab World another world? Separate from the ordinary one?
I thought the world was just the world, inhabited, but not owned, by various groups, creatures and vegetation. But if I was wrong, and the Arabs own a world, or part of the world I occupy, who owns my bit? Should we call it the Infidel World?
Or is the Arab World like the World of Leather, not a world at all, just a place where a helluva lot of Arabs reside?
Can anyone write a letter to this Arab world?

Dear Arab World,
Sorry for not writing sooner, but your beliefs are so profoundly disturbing that I’ve been putting it off.

Looking at your forays into the 21st century by way of Youtube, it seems to me that not only is your religion incompatible with the infidel world, it is incompatible with the adult world. You behave like a bunch of infants acting out some make-believe self-aggrandising fantasy. I suspect you’re putting more effort into convincing yourselves than into trying to persuade others to take you seriously.

The BBC is your biggest and best useful idiot. You’ve got them hooked, lined and sinkered! Who’d have thought the British Broadcasting Corpse would have fallen for it!

This morning’s letter to the Arab World was cunning. Posing as a letter to Syria’s famous political dissident Riyad al-Turk, it contained all the elements of the righteous railing against evil.
Syria’s secret police, walls have ears; they come and get you in the middle of the night. They incarcerate you in a tiny cell and feed you grit.
Who could not be sympathetic to the glorious uprising against a regime bristling with restrictions and repressions? We’re with you all the way.

But wait, what’s this you’re complaining about? They bombed the last stronghold of the Muslim Brotherhood squandering arms that were intended for exterminating Israel? Our struggle? Freedom? The Supposedly malign influence of Islam? Courageous act of prayer? Feisty young Lebanese Palestinian-supporting kaffiyeh-wearing heroine?
Hmm.
Your slip is showing. Your seductive pleas for freedom and democracy are barely concealing your antisemitic zeal. Too soon to spell it out, but bide your time and you’ll be able to shout it loud and clear, facilitated by your compatriots at the BBC. Why, you’re half way there already!
Must dash to catch the post.

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Shocking and Callous

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Several B-BBC people have commented on the BBC’s bizarre take on the recent horrific murder of an Israeli couple and three of their children. Honest Reporting singles out the BBC’s version of the story as being particularly shocking and callous.
Why would the BBC illustrate Saturday’s article with an IDF soldier?
“Palestinian ‘kills five Israelis’ in West Bank.”
What are the scare quotes for?
“Kills five Israelis?” what, they didn’t “kill” them? There weren’t five? or they weren’t Israelis?
What a pointless and inappropriate use of inverted commas, which are, don’t forget, “to convey irony.”

The headline promises the report is to be about the “killing,” but the article sets off, not with the “killing” but with something Israeli troops have done. They’ve launched a manhunt! So the report is about the manhunt, and the “killing” is relegated to second place, perhaps to provide context for this story about a manhunt.
Of course the victims weren’t just an Israeli family. No, they were a settler family, deemed illegal and subhuman under international law.

The intruders showed generosity because two other children had been spared. Mr Netanyahu on the other hand is less compassionate. He is full of threats of punishments and vigorous actions.

So “Palestinians have refused all direct contact with Israel until construction is frozen.” What about the months when all construction was frozen when the Palestinians still refused all contact with Israel? Where have all the scare quotes gone when you need them? They must have run out. ‘Until construction is frozen’ could do with a pair.

And while they are repeating the tag about settlements built since Israel’s 1967 occupation, why doesn’t the BBC remind the readers about why Israel needed to occupy any areas in the first place? It was because of a war. A war which the Arabs started, and the Arabs lost.

Next, the article last updated 13th March.
“Israel Approves new Jewish settler homes in West Bank”
An act of pure defiance and obstructionism? Handy for the BBC, though. Just the thing to justify the murder of an Israeli family including a little baby.

So the concept of ‘hundreds of homes for Jews’ excuses this compassionate intruder and his pal for an act they had no choice but to carry out?

“An Israeli government official said the construction is to be in settlements that Israel expects to retain control of in a possible peace agreement with the Palestinians.”

When it suits them, the BBC uses the all-purpose Palileaks revelations to show that, much to their disapproval, certain agreements over the allocation of territory were under consideration by both parties. That’s the Palestinians as well as the Israelis. However the BBC habitually regards whatever an Israeli government official says with deep suspicion. No, for the purpose of this particular case we are to perceive Jews expanding into ‘stolen Palestinian land’.

“An Israeli government spokesman said the construction move had been planned for some time but the BBC’s Jon Donnison in Ramallah says it’s hard not to see the timing of the announcement as linked to the killings.”
It may be hard for Jon Donnison; but surely not as hard as seeing Jewish settlements as justification for slitting the throat of a three month old baby.

Most people think that celebrating violence and terrorism by handing out sweets is newsworthy. Most people, but apparently not Jon Donnison.

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Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is

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I came across this astonishing article by Benedict Brogan in the Telegraph newspaper today. As it had gone online yesterday I braced myself before checking out the expected tirade of hostile comments. Strangely, they weren’t predominantly hostile though the article was certainly ‘popular’ as it attracted over 1,400 comments.

The article begins by alluding to David Cameron’s speech to the CST in which he promised support for the Jewish people and Israel. Noting Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent concerns about the UK (which were explored in another Telegraph article by Charles Moore), Brogan explores the whole delegitimisation process we are undergoing, spearheaded largely by the BBC.

“Together, the BBC and the internet act as an echo chamber for a coalition of religious and political campaign groups and academics of all stripes – some of them Jewish – pumping out a propaganda campaign of explicit and implicit hostility to Israel.”

Melanie Phillips has posted an article about this ‘rare event indeed in the British media’. So. Cameron has talked the talk, but most people agree it is unlikely that he will ever actually walk the walk.

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Evolution Matters

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“An imam has retracted statements about evolution and the right of Muslim women not to cover their hair after death threats were made against him”, says the BBC.
Compare the BBC’s treatment of the story about the fatwas and death threats Usama Hasan was subjected to with the article over at Harry’s Place, where there’s a cross post from The Spittoon. From the choice of illustration used in the BBC’s article I almost sense mild amusement. Others take the subject very seriously.

The threats emanate from what they call ‘A Pair of White Muslim Extremists.’
A quote from a comment concerns the BBC.

“I remember listening to a white convert to Islam on the BBC Asian Network […..]And he was saying that all the Hindu and Sikh listeners would end up in hell with horrendous tortures if they did not convert to Islam.[…..]even when the National Front were at their peak, a white man could not get away with such blind hatred for Asians on the BBC like that. But in the name of religion, you can spout a lot of vicious hate, especially if you are a white convert who will scream ‘Islamophobia’ if you so much as call them out for their bigotry.”

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No Bite in the Bark

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Sir Howard Davies was given an easy time this morning by rottweiler Humph.
Sir Howard’s resignation may have been a noble selfless thing for the sake of that fandabbydozy institution the LSE, but I felt we never got to the nitty gritty.
What about the influence this dosh from despots might have on the teaching? Humph did ask, but he let Sir Howard get away with a distinctly cavalier denial. Where was Humph’s terrier-like dog-with-a-bone tenacity that we have grown to love and hate?

It may well be a good thing that Gaddafi’s elite are well trained and taught how to do things properly, and it may well be desirable for reputable universities to become global villages at the heart of London even if it means they risk sacrificing their independence, and it may well be necessary to engage with bad people. But must this fearsome, penetrating interviewer accept it all with little more than a murmur ?
Would everyone who might utter: “I’ve made two ‘errors of judgement’ but they weren’t my fault” or: “the government made me make some bad decisions” be let off as lightly?
What made the old dog lie down and let these important questions go, not with a bang but a whimper?

Stephen Pollard, in the Telegraph, wonders about the university funding question too. He is worried about the money that has gone to Islamic study centres.

“A study of five years of politics lectures at the Middle Eastern Centre at St Antony’s College, Oxford, found that 70 per cent were “implacably hostile” to the West and Israel. A friend of mine, a former Oxford academic, felt that his time was largely spent battling a cadre of academics overwhelmingly hostile to the West, in an ambience in which students – from both Britain and abroad – were presented a world-view that was almost exclusively anti-Western. “

Apart from the Oxbridge universities he mentions – for another example I give you Exeter University, the one that has recently announced its decision to charge the maximum tuition fee. It’s the home of a major Saudi-funded Islamic study centre, and it boasts revisionist historian Ilan Pappé and the fragrant Palestinian activist Ghada Karmi as members of its teaching staff. I find this alarming.

These are the things that I want John Humphrys to consider, and I’d like him to savage all intractable interviewees, whatever their politics, in the same ferocious manner presently reserved uniquely for those he disagrees with.

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The Day Today

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I was listening, on and off, to Today this morning. Somewhere in a news bulletin I thought I heard:
“US President Barack Obama has condemned the shooting of two American airmen. He described it as an “outrageous act”, and pledged to “ensure that all the perpetrators are brought to justice”
I’m sure they will leave no turn unstoned to discover the motive.
Then I heard Evan Davis discussing the Pope’s extraordinary decision to forgive the Jews. More on that later.
I avoided Jeremy Bowen. The programme ended with Justin Webb’s interview with a glottal-stopping expert on ‘gigs for despots’ by the likes of Beyonce who get zillions of dollars for two-song sets for sons of sheikhs. Say that wiv your teef out. To his credit, Justin mentioned double standards, where celebs “Make a lot of fuss about playing in Israel.” Then he said, I thought somewhat reflectively, “It’s cooler to play for an Arab dictator than it is to play in Israel.”

For reasons that I won’t go into, my late father always felt deeply uncomfortable about the Catholic church’s theological condemnation of the Jewish race. So I had more than a passing interest in the latest decision by Pope Benedict to reinterpret the matter. Oddly, this item is omitted from the Today website running order, so I’ve transcribed the whole thing and posted in the comments field so as not to bore you with it here.

This issue has always troubled people particularly because, as even the Guardian acknowledges

“Anti-Jewish Catholic doctrines such as the claim that the Jews murdered Christ were said to have ideologically underpinned nazism. Vatican officials allegedly helped Nazis escape Europe after the war.”

So. No small matter. At the end of the piece, Evan asks, ‘ if the Pope is able to ‘reinterpret’ such a thing theologically, how could such a big mistake have been made for a couple of centuries?’

Now we’re getting somewhere, I thought. But no. We aren’t going to get a straight answer to that, especially with such gentle questioning.

There is, however, another question this papal uturn begs. If it’s so easy for a Pope to turn such a fundamental theological matter upon its head, what’s to stop another Pope reverting to default position at some future date? This was touched upon in the Guardian piece.

“Disquiet that the apology was a beautiful gesture but a theological mistake bubbled to the surface last week.

Echoing widespread concern from liberal as well as conservative theologians, the Bishop of Como, Alessandro Maggiolini, said: “In whose name, exactly, is the holy father asking pardon? He is relying on a group of experts, but tomorrow another group of experts might come up with different examples.”

And how well will it go down with the other antisemites of the world?

“Other churchmen said the gesture would be seen by Muslims as a sign of weakness and by secular enemies as a cue to launch further attacks.”

What is my point? I’m not sure. It’s all verbal chip paper anyway, all forgotten by the next day.

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Naughty But Nice

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Robin Shepherd spots the BBC’s response to Iran’s official complaint that the Olympic logo reads “ZION.”

See how they do that? The 2 is like a Z, the 1 underneath is the I, the 0 is, of course, the O, and the other 2 is a sideways N.

The Iranians find the word Zion so objectionable that they’ve threatened to boycott the Olympics if nothing is done.

In this clip Adrian Warner and the cute BBC presenter find this amusing, if not a little endearing, in an “Ooh you are awful, but I like you” kind of way.

Robin Shepherd sees this as a typical nod to Muslim antisemitism – it’s the sort of thing that happens all the time, and tragically, we’re used to it.

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